Cosmic Explorer is a proposed third generation ground-based gravitational wave observatory. Cosmic Explorer uses the same L-shaped design as the

LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Prior to LIG ...

detectors, except with ten times longer arms of 40 km each. This will significantly increase the sensitivity of the observatory allowing observation of the first

black hole merger Black is a color that results from the absence or complete Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of visible spectrum, visible light. It is an achromatic color, without Colorfulness#Chroma, chroma, like white and grey. It is ofte ...

s in the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

, unlike LIGO, which cannot detect events older than 1.5 billion years. In 2019 the Cosmic Explorer team published a study about research needed over the 2020s to build the observatory. A horizon study laying out the vision for the observatory, developing a reference design and presenting a cost estimate was released in 2021.

References

Gravitational wave observatories {{observatory-stub

See also

References